1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to file record maintenance in electronic data processing systems and, more particularly, to a system for determining which menu items have or do not have data supporting them and which files on a disk have no corresponding references on a series of menus for an application program.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Application programs that depend on a number of independent users to update both their individual menus and the corresponding data files share a problem. The problem is that people responsible for the entire application must know if all of the data items have been updated. The problem is exacerbated when the application programs are part of a system or suite of application programs which share a common menuing system and share data files.
There may be thousands of line items contained in the hundreds of applications within some of the more complex application systems now in use. As these systems grow and change with enhancements, updates, deletions, etc., it becomes a very tedious task to monitor the menu items to see if there is data behind the item or not or if data files contained on the system have a corresponding menu line item to make it viewable to the end user. Data without a menu item is hidden and cannot be viewed. It occupies space and has no way of being identified for removal from the system. To check the menus on an individual basis would be a prohibitive task from a resource perspective and would be ineffective at best.
Determining which menu items have or do not have data supporting them and which files on a disk have no corresponding references on a series of menus for an application is not possible without checking each file.